“I was not born again until age 25 in sincere personal repentance toward God and faith to the Lord”
You were “born again” when you were baptised and if you still went to the Catholic Church you would be “saved” each and every time you properly presented yourself for communion.
The sad thing about relapsed Catholics and protestants that have never known the beauty of the Catholic faith is they will never get a chance to be in the actual presence of Jesus Christ at the Eucharist.
Before he was given up to death, a death he freely accepted,
Jesus took bread, and gave you thanks.
He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples and said:
“Take this, all of you, and eat it:
This is my body which will be given up for you.”
When supper was ended, he took the cup.
Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples, and said:
“Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.
It will be shed for you and for all, so that sins may be forgiven.
Do this in memory of me.”
You’ll notice Jesus does not say the bread SYMBOLIZES his body or the cup of wine SYMBOLIZES his blood. He said it was HIS BODY AND BLOOD. I’ve never understood why Protestants think Jesus was lying to them.
Writing to the Christians of Smyrna, in about AD 106, Saint Ignatius warned them to “stand aloof from such heretics”, because, among other reasons, “they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again.”
St Paul teaches the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He states that the cup of blessing is the participation in the blood of Christ and the bread we break is the participation in the body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 10:16). What must the cup and the bread be to make possible this participation in the blood and body of Christ? The most obvious and logical answer is that the bread and cup of wine must really be the body and blood of Christ. St Paul also said that whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord; and any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself (See 1 Corinthians 11:27, 29). How can eating mere bread and wine unworthily be so serious? Paul’s comments make sense only if bread and wine become the real body and blood of Christ.
http://www.justforcatholics.org/a39.htm
In Scripture, regeneration effects immediate and supernatural effects in heart and life, and which sets them in contrast to a backsliden state. (Acts 2:42; 16:14,15, 30-34; 1 Thessalonians 1:6-10; Gal. 4:6) This is not mere conformity to religious form, or cultic practices, but a conversion that often occurred in the same hour that they heard the gospel, and initially is a spontaneous (and often radical) change in heart affections and life direction, and leads into growth in grace characterized by led by the Spirit in obeying the Scripture.
The basic interior difference alone which i realized as a result of being born again at age 25 was such that it was essentially like day and night. (2Cor. 5:17) My soul was alive for the first time, and even nature seemed new to me (and i had a good job, health, friends , etc. before that, and was not addicted to drugs). I knew i had to get a Bible and had an insatiable desire to know how to please God according to it, listening to Christian radio day and night as a truck driver, but also for the first time i realized the real conflict between the flesh and the Spirit.
And while i certainly do not and did not think i had “arrived” (and in fact i was/am conscious of specific even “minor” sins unlike before), i was much different than the rest of the Catholics that i knew and kept going to Mass with, with very very few exceptions of simple souls and one who was influenced by evangelicals. And my compulsion to speak about Christ was not mere emotionalism, but flowed from a conversion of heart from spiritual death to life, and to say that was already born again before my heart conviction and conversion is absurd and makes a mockery of Scriptural regeneration.
I was sincere in my belief in God as child, but had never come to God as soul who was convicted of his desperate need for salvation, being a sinner destitute of any means to save himself, and who called upon the Lord Jesus to save by His blood and righteous, of a broken heart and contrite spirit — which God is nigh unto and promises to save. (Ps. 34:18) Had i died before then i would have been lost. Yet it that kind of heart that i must have more of today. (Is. 66:2)
But like i was, multitudes in both Roman Catholicism and many in Protestantism go thru rituals, and give sincere or perfunctory intellectual assent to questions, and may be “religious” according to its forms, but they where never convicted of “of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment,” (Jn. 16:9) which conviction preceded Scriptural conversion out of the kind of faith the is evidence in baptism — results in clear rejection.
"And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. " (Acts 24:25)
"Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? " (Acts 2:37)
"And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. " (Acts 9:6)
"Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? " (Acts 16:29-30)
As for baptism and the Lord's supper, i have dealt with the Roman Catholic misconstruance of them so often here that i am not going to do so again right now (tired) on this old and dying tread, but will direct you to an extensive examination i wrote a few years ago on the latter. And as regards not being in the claimed “actual presence of Jesus Christ at the Eucharist,” besides doctrine, looking back, I never saw or realized any real change or difference after having partaken sincerely out of a contrite heart. Roman Catholics and i were the same before and after receiving the Catholic Eucharist, though i would not preclude some may experience psychological effects, apart from a deceptive source.